Esher District competition hike

What do weird questions, aching feet and Cadbury Mini Eggs have in common? They are all things that you might encounter on Scouts day hike – and we certainly did on Saturday the 15th of March on the Esher District competition hike. Our teams checked out of the 1st Busbridge Scout hut in Godalming at around 9am and set off looking for the footpaths that would take us on our route across the Surrey Hills. As we were getting closer to the first checkpoint, Team A encountered a padlocked gate that we were supposed to go through so we had to think quickly to find an alternative route to the blue checkpoint.

As we left the blue checkpoint, we took a compass bearing to find our way to the next checkpoint. There were a lot of hills in this section of the hike, which made it harder than the first leg of the expedition. However, we persevered and found our way without any trouble. We checked out of the half-way checkpoint feeling eager to continue so we set off at a good pace in the next sector of the hike, walking through a lot of forests and fields on the way.

It was at this point in the hike that we found our other competition team walking by us not too far from the checkpoint. We then went our separate ways and continued on to the next checkpoint.

We set off from the last checkpoint with lots of time to spare as we had been walking at a good pace for the whole of the time leading up to this. There were quite a few roads that we had to cross in this leg of the race but we kept going and reached Godalming again via the final stretch of footpath marked on the map. We checked into the hut again with one and a half hours to spare, making it back in very good time. It was a great day and all of us in Team A was proud of our performance. The Scouts in our team who were competing in a hike for the first time did particularly well.

By Xavi M